


the darkness creeps close (to welcome you home)

by nevershootamockingbird



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grace centric, Light Angst, M/M, gracie i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 02:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7958263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevershootamockingbird/pseuds/nevershootamockingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grace carried it with her everywhere, took it out to hold in her hand if she was out after dark, and counted stars along the way. Why be scared when you can enjoy the night? Why be scared of the dark when your attacker is more likely to be someone you know?</p>
            </blockquote>





	the darkness creeps close (to welcome you home)

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers, no problem. Set in the future but doesn't really deal with anything from past seasons, so we should be good. I love Grace Williams with all my heart and I feel SO BAD for writing this but I had to. Honestly I'm pretty proud of this one, hope you enjoy!

Grace hasn’t been scared of the dark in a long time.

When she was little, she remembers asking Danno to check under her bed and in her closet, to plug in her nightlight and sit with her until she fell asleep. She wishes she’d listened a little better when he wearily told her after a long day at work, looking worn down and crumpled under an unknown weight, that the real monsters were the people outside her room.

She’d always nod when he said that, hugging him back before asking if he’d play with her, relieved when she could get his smile to look a little more sincere. Grace never cared much about the monsters outside, because Danno was working to stop them all, and she knew he’d never let them get her.

The older she got, the less scared she became, letting her childhood fear float away unattached the longer they stayed in Oahu. Uncle Chin always told her that sleeping with her windows open made for better dreams, and Aunt Kono insisted on teaching her how to defend herself, even if it made Danno uncomfortable. Her father would grumble and rant, insisting that it would make her uneasy to learn more than a basic punch and takedown, but he never stopped her aunt. She wasn’t sure how to tell him, anyway, that it didn’t make her worry, that it just made the fear uncurl from her stomach and go, but after Steve bought her pepper spray on her fourteenth birthday, Danno seemed to feel better about it all. Grace carried it with her everywhere, took it out to hold in her hand if she was out after dark, and counted stars along the way. Why be scared when you can enjoy the night? Why be scared of the dark when your attacker is more likely to be someone you know?

\--

Grace ducks behind a tree, holding a hand over her mouth to muffle her own breathing, trying to listen for any sound to indicate where her pursuer is at. There’s the snap of a branch, quiet, not close but not as far away as she wants, and Grace has to blink back sudden tears so she can stay focused.

She’s slow pulling out her phone, careful not to make any obvious noise, lowering the brightness as much as possible and switching it to silent. Her hands are shaking as she types out a message, brief, ‘SOS track me. Chasing, gun’, tremors making it hard to lock again, but then there’s a sound too close for comfort and she can’t think anymore.

Grace darts up and out, running as fast as she can, hears a shout and thumping footsteps, pushes herself that much harder. She knows this jungle, has been here camping and on hikes with her Five-Oh family, and the moon is bright enough to show her how close she is. The minute her foot lands on asphalt she’s digging her phone out of her pocket again, sobbing and hitting her emergency contacts, praying for a pick up. 

A gunshot snaps the silence as the phone starts ringing, makes her jerk left and scream, and god, this can’t be happening.

“Gracie? Gracie! Jesus, baby, please, say something!” Her dad’s voice sounds awful, wrecked and desperate, but fuck if it isn’t the best thing she’s heard in her life.

“Please, he’s got a gun, please, I need you here, I’m so scared-” she’s gasping, zig-zagging while she runs towards the main road, and she can’t help the terrified cry she lets out when a bullet sparks off the pavement next to her.

“You hear those sirens, Grace? We’re almost there, I promise,” he’s swearing at someone but she can, she can hear the sirens through the phone and down the highway, a feedback that makes her fun faster because she’s almost safe. “We’re coming to get you, sweetheart, just hold on,” he’s almost yelling, voice loud, and then another shot rings out and she’s screaming because it means she’s still alive.

Grace almost stops when she hits the main road and sees the Camaro racing her way, leading the line of Lou and Kono’s cars, Chin’s bike rumbling as he speeds past. She keeps going, though, almost dropping her phone as the cars skid on asphalt, not looking back when she hears the boom of her uncle’s shotgun. Danno’s out of the car by then, not even shutting his door, and he doesn’t drive, he never drives, but it explains why she didn’t hear his voice on the phone. She starts crying again when he drops down and hugs her, letting her fall into him and sob, lowering them both down when it becomes clear she can’t stand anymore.

“You’re safe, you’re okay, we got you,” Danno’s babbling but she doesn’t care, believes every word he says, because it’s finally over. She hears her aunt Kono yelling at someone, more sirens moving past them, but then her dad is dropping down on her other side with a shaky breath and it’s all she can do to reach out blindly for his hand.

“I’m right here, Gracie,” Steve tells her, voice weary in a way it hadn’t been on the phone, and she starts crying harder when she realizes how badly she must have scared them. “Hey, hey, baby, it’s okay, it’s over. You’re safe,” he says, moving closer, and she doesn’t care how old she is, she just wants to curl up between her dads until everything goes away.

\--

Everyone insists on her going to the hospital to get checked out, but they let it slide when she balks at getting into the ambulance, breathing going unsteady until Steve wraps an arm around her, voice gentle as he tells her that they’ll take her instead. Grace sags into her dad, lets him lead her back to Danno’s car, climbing into the back slowly and buckling up immediately, and she’s asleep before Danny even shifts the car into ‘drive’.

Her dads stay with her at the hospital, holding her hands when they aren’t in the way of the staff, both looking incredibly relieved when the nurses tell them there’s nothing wrong with her past just mild shock and scratches from running through the jungle. By the time her wounds have been cleaned and bandaged, by the time she’s been given fluids through an IV and made to eat one of her dad’s emergency protein bars, Grace is more exhausted than she’s ever been in her life.

She’s leaning heavily into Danno, smiling as she listens to him and Steve talk quietly over her head, and her eyes are so heavy she just lets them close, trusting her dads not to let her walk into anything. She’s a little disgruntled when they stop suddenly, almost stumbling before her dad’s hand catches her upper arm, and she’s about to ask what gives when she opens her eyes and promptly loses all her words.

Grace’s family is all there, Uncle Chin and Aunt Kono, Uncle Lou and Max, Kamekona and Flippah. They’re sitting in the waiting room, looking worse for the wear and as tired as she feels, but they’re still here, and Grace feels her eyes well up again as she realizes that they’re all waiting for her. Aunt Kono sees her first, smile radiant and wide, and then her family is surrounding her, armed with nothing more than tight hugs and soothing words. Their utter relief is palpable, reminding her again how lucky she is, but with Five-Oh all around her, Grace knows she’ll always be safe.

\--

Tomorrow will be a different story.

Tomorrow, her mother and Stan will fly back to the island, hysterical and angry, berating her dads for not calling them sooner.

Tomorrow, she’ll be bombarded with texts and phone calls as news gets out that the football team’s senior quarterback tried to kidnap and kill his sixteen-year-old girlfriend.

Tomorrow, she’ll have to give her statement again, to people she doesn’t know in the governor’s office and the police department, have to relive the night’s trauma over and over again until she can’t breathe.

Tonight, though, Grace is safe. She’s tucked into bed with her two dads sitting at the end of it, waiting for her to fall asleep. The window is open wide like Unlce Chin always advised, and a nightlight from Aunt Kono and Adam is plugged into the wall.

Tonight, Grace is taking back the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this!! Kudos are lovely, comments are wonderful, and please come yell with (or at) me on [Tumblr!](https://nevershootamockingbird.tumblr.com)


End file.
